Kingsborough Community College Named to Presidential Honor Roll for Community Service

Brooklyn, New York, February 18 – The Corporation for National and Community Service honored Kingsborough Community College today with a place on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for exemplary service efforts and service to America’s communities.

“Kingsborough students have been extraordinary in responding to the educational, cultural, and economic needs of our community and we are delighted that they, as well as our faculty and staff are recognized for helping to build a culture of service and civic engagement in our country,” said Dr. Regina Peruggi, president of Kingsborough Community College.

Launched in 2006, the Community Service Honor Roll is the highest federal recognition a school can achieve for its commitment to service-learning and civic engagement. Honorees for the award were chosen based on a series of selection factors including scope and innovation of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service, and the extent to which the school offers academic service-learning courses.

The following service-learning projects contributed to Kingsborough achieving a place on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll:

Junior Achievement Financial Literacy Project- Service-learning students from Speech and Career Communications classes volunteered at P.S. 206 in Brooklyn and provided financial literacy and job readiness curriculums to eight classes of middle school students. The curriculums were presented utilizing games and activities that made learning fun for the students.

New York City Housing Authority Youth Development Project – KCC service-learning students from Behavioral Sciences and Education classes performed their service-learning hours by tutoring students in an after school program at three New York City Housing Authority community centers. The KCC students used the New York City school district’s Partners in Reading program in their tutoring program.

Wildlife Conservation Society Project – Over fifteen service-learning students from the Website Development, Broadcasting Technology and Art courses are collaborating to produce new video and website materials for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), due to be unveiled in late Spring 2009. These materials will be used to support staff training at various WCS sites, such as the Bronx Zoo, the New York Aquarium and the Central Park Zoo.

“In this time of economic distress, we need volunteers more than ever. College students represent an enormous pool of idealism and energy to help tackle some of our toughest challenges,” said Stephen Goldsmith, vice chair of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees the Honor Roll. “We salute Kingsborough Community College for making community

service a campus priority, and thank the millions of college students who are helping to renew America through service to others.”

Overall, the Corporation honored six schools with Presidential Awards. In addition, 83 were named as Honor Roll With Distinction members and 546 schools as Honor Roll members. In total, 635 schools were recognized. A full list is available at www.nationalservice.gov/honorroll.

The Honor Roll is a program of the Corporation, in collaboration with the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation. The President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll is presented during the annual conference of the American Council on Education.

“I offer heartfelt congratulations to those institutions named to the 2008 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. College and university students across the country are making a difference in the lives of others every day – as are the institutions that encourage their students to serve others,” said American Council on Education President Molly Corbett Broad.

Recent studies have underlined the importance of service-learning and volunteering to college students. In 2006, 2.8 million college students gave more than 297 million hours of volunteer service, according to the Corporation’s Volunteering in America 2007 study. Expanding campus incentives for service is part of a larger initiative to spur higher levels of volunteering by America’s college students. The Corporation is working with a coalition of federal agencies, higher education and student associations, and nonprofit organizations to achieve this goal.

The Corporation for National and Community Service is a federal agency that improves lives, strengthens communities, and fosters civic engagement through service and volunteering. The Corporation administers Senior Corps, AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve America, a program that supports service-learning in schools, institutions of higher education and community-based organizations. For more information, go to www.nationalservice.gov.

Kingsborough Community College, one of the top ten community colleges in the country and Brooklyn’s only community college, is located on a 70-acre campus in Manhattan Beach, on the southern tip of Brooklyn. The breathtaking campus overlooks three bodies of water: Sheepshead Bay, Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. It serves approximately thirty thousand students per year, offering a wide range of credit and non-credit courses in the liberal arts, career education, and specialized programs. For more information, go to http://www.kbcc.cuny.edu.